- DNREC’s projections of job growth in energy management for the state show that over the next couple of years, as many as 2,000 or more new jobs may be created; in a decade, it could be 10,000 to 15,000.
Architect Corey Hill got knocked off his game when the recession slowed construction in Sussex County. So Hill decided to change the game.
Rather than wait for the overall economy to improve, Hill decided to catch the “green economy” wave. The 32-year-old Georgetown resident and 26 other students are beginning their studies in a new two-year energy management program at Delaware Technical & Community College (DTCC). The program offers an associate’s degree after two years of coursework involving both online instruction and practical lab work. The courses are aimed at preparing students for variety of positions, including facility manager, energy auditor, and energy program coordinator. Hill says his new skills will be “something I could take back with me in architecture when I choose to return.”
Stephanie Smith, Del Tech’s vice president for academic affairs, has spearheaded the college’s applied energy programs, which provide hands-on training in energy conservation and renewable energy generation. The college has prior experience in this sort of training. For years it has offered an accredited heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) program at its Georgetown campus that included energy management practices such as weatherization and energy auditing. Two years ago DTCC developed a five-course certificate program for people in the field.
Del Tech decided to increased such course offerings at the start of the Obama and Markell administrations, when green economy initiatives became a priority. Delaware passed new laws mandating reductions in energy use in state-owned buildings, and changed building codes to promote increased energy efficiency in private buildings throughout the state. “Really, the whole landscape shifted,” Smith says.
The college assembled an advisory committee to plan its response to the policy changes, seeking information from experts in the public and private sectors, including the state’s Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. DNREC projects the creation of about 2,000 new energy management jobs over the next couple of years, and 10,000 or more jobs during the next decade. DNREC secretary Collin O’Mara says creating those jobs requires three factors: government policies that promote market incentives for energy innovations; goods and services to meet the demand; and a strong work force to deliver those goods. O’Mara worked with Del Tech to design workforce training programs that were “sequenced and scaled to match the aggregate demand.”
Smith says the committee decided to add the energy-management courses in stages, timed to shifts in the economy. The first stage was to provide training in low-income home weatherization, as well as courses to help energy auditors and contractors get state-mandated certification from the Building Performance Institute (BPI) to participate in energy conservation rebate programs for homes and businesses.
- Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon had received a National Science Foundation grant to share its much-acclaimed energy management curriculum with other community colleges. Lane had planned to work with four colleges, but agreed to take Del Tech on as the fifth.
The second stage of curriculum growth began this fall with a program to train energy managers in the commercial sector. The program came about through a partnership with Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore. Lane received a National Science Foundation grant to share its much-acclaimed energy management curriculum with other community colleges. Lane had planned to work with four colleges, but agreed to take on Del Tech as well.
Roger Ebbage, coordinator of Lane’s energy management program, says the curriculum is unique because it was designed from the start as a comprehensive energy management program, unlike HVAC programs with an added energy component. In Lane’s curriculum, students not only learn to do energy audits to assess potential energy conservation in a building; they also study how to make changes to the structure and infrastructure of buildings to boost energy efficiency.
Lane offers the classroom portion of its curriculum online, so Del Tech students can take part from the other end of the country. The curriculum works anywhere in the nation, Ebbage says. It was tweaked to take into account climates differences in Oregon and Delaware.
Using Del Tech’s own buildings as a hands-on laboratory, students will help make their own campuses more energy efficient. A nearly $3.5 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA) will fund the construction early next year of more sophisticated energy education facilities at Del Tech’s Stanton and Dover campuses.
A separate $800,000 EDA grant funded a similar building currently under construction on Del Tech’s Georgetown campus. With the new facilities and programs, Del Tech and the State hope to make Delaware a regional leader in providing green-economy training.
Smith says the new facilities will enable Del Tech to offer more sophisticated training for BPI certification, as well as courses in the installation and use of photovoltaic solar panels, solar thermal technology, and wind energy technology, including large-scale offshore wind turbines.
Del Tech also will be able to offer more consumer education courses on energy conservation for home and business owners. “We’re watching the demand [for such courses] grow,” Smith says, “and we also want to feed that growth.”
